Top 10 Brokerages 2015

WELCOME TO THE 2015 Insurance Business Canada Top 10 Brokerages special report.

After seeking out, receiving and vetting nominations from brokerages across the country, our research has identified the companies worthy of the title of Canada’s top brokerages.

But when it comes to deciding who gets the top spot, it’s not just about the biggest gross written premium. Our unique ‘handicap’ methodology means we place brokers large and small on a level playing field to find the country’s best performers.

Think your firm belongs among on our distinguished list? Make sure your brokerage is nominated for next year’s rankings! We appreciate the effort of brokerages that put themselves forward through this year’s process, and we hope readers enjoy the insight provided by our top honourees.

The methodology

The Insurance Business Canada ranking system is an objective means of ranking the best-performing insurance brokerages.

Each brokerage that was nominated was required to supply its own details to Insurance Business Canada to be eligible. In total, there were 13 criteria:

Revenue (2014)

Revenue growth (2014 vs 2013, as a %)

Revenue from new policies written in 2014

Revenue per broker (2014)

New revenue per broker (2014)

Brokers (end of 2014)

New brokers (brought on during 2014, as % of total)

Clients (end of 2014)

Client growth (total clients at end 2014 vs end 2013, as a %)

New clients (brought on in 2014)

New clients per broker (2014)

Policies written (2014)

Policy growth (policies written in 2014 vs 2013, as a %)

Each brokerage was ranked by each of these criteria, and the sums of all their rankings were added together. The brokerages were then placed in order of who had the lowest overall score (think of it like a golf score – higher rankings in each section means you have a lower overall score).

By ensuring that the majority of the criteria used rewarded business per broker rather than just critical mass, and that metrics like revenue increases were expressed as percentages of total business, the very best-performing brokerages were rewarded, rather than just those producing large amounts of business.

Which brokerages fared best for each criteria?

IN ADDITION TO our overall rankings, we also calculated the top five brokerages for each criteria. For some criteria (such as total revenue), larger firms naturally rose to the top.

However, we didn’t want larger firms to dominate the competition merely through sheer size. So for other criteria, we ranked brokerages on a sliding scale to allow smaller firms to shine as well. For criteria like revenue per broker and total number of policies, for instance, brokerage’s numbers were ranked as a percentage of total business.

In that way, brokerages were ranked on a level playing field regardless of their size. So while large powerhouse brokerages like Jones DesLauriers Insurance Management and Cowan Insurance Group were always going to come out on the top of the heap for absolute criteria like total revenue and number of brokers, smaller firms like Mitchell & Whale and C.M. Steele were able to top the list for other criteria like percentage client growth and revenue per broker.